


The Hunt Calls

by DaDooD



Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: F/F, Witch hunting AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 11:28:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11252208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaDooD/pseuds/DaDooD
Summary: For ages, witches have enslaved mankind. All throughout the world, their Covens control and govern those without magic. However, in recent years technology has seen a rapid, secret growth now allowing ordinary humans to stand against the witches that ruled them. Through the formation of a Human Resistance, they begin to fight back. Now a bloody conflict has begun as each side seeks to completely wipe out the other. Caught in the middle are Atsuko "Akko" Kagari, a girl from Japan working as a witch hunter, and Diana Cavendish, a British born witch in training. Together, they may hold the key to ending this war before it tears apart the world.





	1. Encounter in the Tunnel

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this AU Idea for awhile now, so I'm excited to share it! My intention is to make it a darker in tone, but hopefully not edgy and bleak. I don't know how frequent chapters will be, as this one took me quite awhile already, and this is my first real longtime work. I plan to roll them out at least monthly, but I am starting College in a couple of weeks so progress may be slowed. Anyway, let me know what you think, and I hope you enjoy!

Dark. It was really damn dark. That was all the woman could tell as she ran blindly for her life. As she bolted down the blackened corridor, all she could hear were the echoes of her own footsteps, bouncing around the overbearing darkness. _“Run. You have to keep running,”_ was what she repeated in her head over and over in an attempt to spur herself past fatigue. In the end, she found herself short on breath, and had to stop anyway. Blindly groping her way till she hit a wall, the woman leaned against it breathing heavily. She must have outrun them by now shouldn’t have she? There was no way they were still on her tail. Still, the woman felt herself at unease, as if the surrounding darkness itself was watching her every move. Slowly, her hand slid to the wand that was sheathed at her side, pulling it free and extending it to its full length. As she raised it, a small green orb glowed faintly at its tip, slightly illuminating the immediate area. She stood, unmoving, her back against the wall, as she slowly regained her breath. 

After what felt like hours, when in reality it had only been a few minutes, the woman began to slowly relax. Cautiously, she stepped away from the tunnel wall, holding her wand higher in a hope of surveying her surroundings. Unfortunately for her, she had failed to notice another soft green glow in the dark. One not caused by her wand. One that was getting brighter by the second.

She heard the blast before she felt it; the distinct hum that always followed a fired bolt of plasma. It wasn’t until she was crashing backwards into the wall that she felt the unbelievably searing pain that accompanied it. This was it. They had found her. The Resistance’s hunters had found her. As she slumped to the ground, her mind feeling foggy, the woman’s first thought was to raise her wand in defense, only to slowly realize the impact of the blast had flung it from her hands. Out of her reach, it slowly rolled to a stop, illuminating the menacing figure of the hunter whom had fired the blast. It was surreal sight. One that chilled her to her bones.

From what she had read, most witch hunting suits follow the same model, and are standard issue among hunters. The only major differences among them being color, which often denoted rank or division. The suits are made in three major sections, each tailored to the hunter’s size and body shape; The leggings, The torso, and the helmet. Each section is plated with a magic resistant material, providing protection against wayward spells. The leggings tended to be a bit lighter on restrictive armor, in order to not hinder the hunter’s movement. The torso, However, was armored quite heavily, in order to protect the user's heart. Torso’s also typically sported shoulder pads of sorts, that could be augmented it necessary. Finally, the helmets completely cover a hunter’s head, connecting to the neck piece of the torso. This provided a seal, meant to ward off gas based magics and poisons. Hunter’s are able see thanks to a highly advance visor that is built into the helmet. Somehow, it allows them not only to see in the dark, but to scan for body heat as well. Witch Hunting suits also provide a slight boost in a hunter’s physical strength, allowing them to lift heavy objects and debris. Augmentative feats like this should be impossible without magic of course, yet somehow the suits provided them without a single spell. It’s what made them so terrifying. It’s what made every detail about them be expressed as extremely dangerous.

Yet None of the reports, none of the pictures or diagrams even came close to capturing the terror of staring down a full armored hunter in person. The hunter continued to stare, at her, unmoving. As the witch struggled through the fog in her head to formulate a plan, the hunter began to move, raising their rifle to fire another shot. Fear began to course through her, occupying whatever mind space she was trying to use for rational thought. This was it. She was going to die here. 

_“NO!,”_ She screamed in her head. _“No I don’t want to die! Please, in the name of the ancient nine don’t let me die!”_ She was shaking now, tears streaming down her face, as the glow of a plasma bolt began to form at the end of the rifle. Suddenly, the witch shouted aloud, “PLEASE DON’T KILL ME!” It was most likely absolute, crushing terror that caused her to cry out loud, as she hadn’t even realized she had done it. The witch couldn’t believe her eyes as the glow of plasma faded, and the hunter lowered their weapon. Had her plea really worked? Was she being spared? The hunter continued to stare at her, tilting their head slightly as if curious about something. Slowly the hunter began to walk towards her, stopping right in front of where she lay. The witch watched in shock as the hunter crouched down, and removed their helmet. Or more accurately, her helmet.

The witch didn’t really know what she expected the face of a hunter to look like, but it certainly wasn’t what she saw before her. The girl's face was rounded, and seemed much friendlier than any hunter’s had a right being. She had shoulder length, brown hair with a small ponytail of sorts sitting atop her head. It would seem this would be to keep hair out of her face, if it weren't for the messy bangs that fell above her left side anyway. The first thing that struck her, was how young the girl was. She couldn’t have been older than 17 or 18, Which made her various scars, the one stretching diagonally across the bridge of her nose in particular, seem irregular and out of place. The next thing was her eyes. They were a deep ruby red and even in this darkness, seemed to shimmer. The girl blinked at her curiously, leaning in closely before she finally spoke.

“Were you begging just now?” She asked in a questioning tone. Taken aback by the sudden question and closeness of her face, the witch failed to properly answer.

“I-I’m sorry?” She responded quietly.

“Just now. When I was about to shoot you. You begged me not to kill you, didn’t you?”

The witch was at a loss for words. Technically, yes she was in fact begging for her life, but should she answer in the affirmative? Would That have a chance of the hunter letting her go? It was unconventional but then again so was everything else about this encounter. She decided that she would roll the dice.

“Yes, I guess I was.”

The girl let out a low whistle at this, as she slightly leaned back. She began to tap her finger to her chin in thought. She averted her gaze from the witch slightly as she hummed to herself

“Wow,” She began after a moment's contemplation. “A witch begging for her life. I thought you were all supposed to be super prideful and stuff, yah know, thinking you're above humanity and all that.” the girl returned her gaze to the witch’s as she awaited an explanation.

In truth the witch had no idea how to respond. Was she supposed to take that as an insult? She had to admit, that she did feel her blood boil as this human mouthed off at her, but she kept it under wraps. Saying the wrong thing now could get her killed!

“Pride is nothing if it gets you killed.”

The hunter looked at her confused, until that confusion changed to something unnerving; mirth. The Girl began to laugh at her response, and for some reason, it filled her with dread. Cutting off her laugh, the hunter suddenly leaned back in, starring the witch right in the eyes. Startled, she tried to lean away, only for her head to hit the wall behind her. While it had started to wane, the fear she had felt earlier was back full force. Plastered on the hunter’s face, was a large grin. In any other context, the comical grin and soft face could be seen as reassuring and friendly, but here in the dark depths of the tunnel, it was anything but.

“Did you really think,” The hunter spoke smoothly, pushing her face even closer. “That you’re pathetic spiel earlier was gonna save your life?” She barked out a harsh laugh before continuing, “ I was just surprised that you begged at all. It was the first time I’d ever seen a witch just, give up like that. I didn’t think it happened, if I’m being honest, but I guess you learn something new everyday!”

She punctuated the end of her statement with a clap as she rose to her feet, making the witch jump. Meanwhile the witch's mind was racing.

 _“Wait, WAIT! Does that mean that she’s not letting me go?”_ She thought frantically. _“She has to though right? Right!? Doesn’t she?”_ Coming to a conclusion, the witch decided to try one last desperate attempt.

“Please! You’ll show me mercy right? I’m only a coven member, not even an officer!”

The hunter paused at this, and for a slight second, the witch felt a glimmer of hope. A glimmer of hope that was crushed almost immediately as the hunter once again met her gaze.

“Like hell I am.”

The witch felt as if her soul itself shattered with these words. This was it. The end. Once again, the hunter began to raise her rifle as she spoke

“Where was this mercy when you enslaved the children of Appleton?”  
The soft glow of plasma once again began to form.

“Where was it when mothers and fathers begged you to spare them and their families?”

The witch, now broken in spirit, simply sat in silence staring into the hunter’s eyes.

“Where was it when your coven watched them burn?”

The hunter pressed the barrel of her weapon into the witches forehead, the glowing ball of gathering energy shining in her face. As the light from her imminent doom filled her vision, the witch got one last glimpse into her killers eyes. Looking at them deeply, she realized the glint in them should have let her know all along; there was never any hope of mercy. The weapon fired, obliterating the witch's head, splattering her brains and blood across the tunnel wall. 

Slinging her weapon over her shoulder, the hunter picked up her helmet from where she had set it down, dusting it off before tucking it under her arm. She let out a relaxed sigh, turning to walk away. An annoyed voice however stopped her in her tracks.

“You should have just shot her from the start Akko. That took way longer than it needed to.”

Akko Kagari turned back around as another hunter stepped out of the darkness and removed their helmet. 

“Come on Sucy!” Akko whined at her friend. “It was a witch who was begging! Surrendering! You can’t honestly tell me you weren’t the least bit curious?” 

Sucy frowned at this, her trademark long, lavender hair falling into place covering her left eye. Sucy Manbavaran was an interesting person to say in the least. She was on the taller side, slender, and paler than most people expected a girl from the Philippines to be. To an outsider, she might have seemed quiet and reserved, but Akko knew first hand just how biting and sarcastic she could be. Of course Sucy often kept to herself because of her interest in deadly poisons. She never really explained where the obsession came from, only that she knew everything there is to know about poisons and how they affected the body.

Despite all this, she and Akko had become fast friends. Sucy liked to say it was because she thought Akko bumbling through training was funny, and she only stuck to the other girl for entertainment. Deep down however, She truly cared about Akko, and enjoyed her company, even if she could be quite the dunce. Like she was being now. 

“No, Akko. I wasn’t curious. In fact I couldn’t have cared less.” Sucy walked over towards the corpse as she talked, much to Akko’s confusion. Confusion that turned into embarrassment when she saw the other girl pick up the witch’s discarded wand. “Forget something?” the lavender haired hunter asked coyly. Akko felt her face heat up slightly as she tried to defend herself.

“What? Of course not. I was jus-”

“Oh so you wanted to leave this here and let another witch use it track us?” Sucy cut her off, sarcastically. “It’s just that typical procedure has us take them with us for examination.” She chuckled at Akko’s growing discomfort. “Maybe you should have been focusing on the mission more, and on a witch’s weepy final words less.” 

Akko couldn’t really say anything against that. Sucy was right, a left wand was a dangerous mistake. Trying to retain what dignity she had left, Akko resumed her walk towards the tunnel’s exit, Sucy following her close behind.

“Yeah, yeah,” She muttered. “Let’s just get back to Lotte and the transport and get outta here already. It smells down here.”

Sucy grinned widely. “I don’t know, I kinda like it. Reminds me of my lab.”

Akko had no response to this, and decided to simply keep walking

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Lotte Yanson wrung her hands nervously as she paced back and forth in front of the rover. This was taking too long. Sucy and Akko should have been back by now. After all, they had only been chasing a stray witch. A witch that seemed quite low on the chain of command a that. So why the hold up? Lotte bit her lip as dozens of worrying scenarios began to play out in her mind.

 _“What if I was wrong and the witch was actually really powerful!? I would have sent them to their deaths!! What if it was a trap and the witch called for back up? What if one of their suits malfunctioned? What if-”_

Lotte had been so deep in thought that she failed to notice her teammates emerge from the tunnel, and walk towards her. 

She wasn’t cut out for this sort of thing she decided. What was she thinking signing up for the Nova Force? Someone like her was meant to be behind a desk, not out hunting witches!! Lotte had always been the type that was quick to panic, it’s just who she was. She enjoyed reading and writing more than she did anything of the physical variety. Her childhood home back in Finland was connected to a bookstore after all, so she supposed she was a product of it. She was also quite shy, hardly ever raising her voice, and never going out of her way to bring attention to herself. She was short and sported a messy bob of orange hair. On the bridge of her nose sat a pair of red framed, semi rimmed glasses that seemed to magnify her bright blue eyes. Lotte was pretty much the textbook definition of what someone would consider cute. Hardly the type of girl one would expect to be a hunter. Or at least that’s what she told herself. The truth was that many hunters sported faces that weren’t exactly what one would expect under the helmet. Heck, Akko herself was another shining example.

 _“Akko…”_ Thinking of her friend brought her worry back to the front of her mind. Worry that was ultimately pointless, as Akko was right behind her, and proceed to tap her on the shoulder. Lotte nearly jumped out of her armor as she turned around quickly with a startled yelp. She half expected to see the witch from earlier, back for revenge. Instead she was met with Akko. Panic turned quickly to relief as Lotte took in her friends goofy, grinning face. 

“Akko! I’m so glad your okay!” Lotte said, nearly in tears. “You guys were taking so long- I, I thought something terrible had happened!” Akko could only rub the back of her head sheepishly at that.

“Yeah, that was my bad. Got a little caught up in my excitement.” At Lotte’s look of confusion, she tacked on “I’ll explain later.” Lotte shook her head, not really caring all that much at the moment. Akko and Sucy were okay! Lotte threw her arms around Akko, pulling her in for a hug. It wasn’t until she was inches away from the Japanese girl that Lotte noticed that her goofy, grinning face, was a quite bloody goofy, grinning face. 

“AUGH! AKKO!” She jumped back in disgust almost as suddenly as she had hugged her. “Why is there blood all over you!?” Akko gave a nervous laugh before responding.

“Well what can I say? Witch hunting can be messy.” Akko could tell by Lotte’s face that she was not amused with this answer. “Look there is a lot of blood and gunk in a head okay? When they go splat, It’s easy to get caught in the splash zone!” Lotte only continued to stare at her in disapproval. Sucy, who had been relatively quiet up until this point, was now laughing a raspy laugh. Whether it was directed at her lame excuse or Lotte’s rare show of anger Akko had no idea. With a huff, Lotte handed her a towel that she had seemingly pulled out of nowhere.

“That’s what helmets are for Akko!” She grabbed Akko’s shoulders and spun her around roughly, pointing her to a nearby river. “Now go clean up! You are not getting into that transport until there is ZERO witch blood on you.” 

“Aww but Lotte! I’m so tired, can’t we just wait till we get back to base?” Akko whined. “Besides, the kill is way more interesting if you look them in the eyes while doing it. You learn a whole lot more!” Lotte merely crossed her arms, the stern look on her face let Akko know she wasn’t convinced. “Come on Sucy, back me up here.” Akko turned to her other friend, hoping to find some kind of support. All she found instead was a wicked a grin and obvious enjoyment at her predicament. 

“I dunno Akko, I think it's more fun to pretend the helmet is your face. If you believe it, the witch starts to. It scares the crap out of them.” Sucy laughed darkly to herself.

Seeing that there really was no way out of it, Akko slumped her shoulders in defeat. “Ugh, fiiiiiinnnee. I’ll go clean up.” Clutching the towel handed to her, Akko walked towards the river Lotte had pointed her at. This mission really hadn’t gone her way. First almost leaving the wand, and now having to wash off like some dirty puppy. Still, despite all of it Akko found herself smiling slightly as she recalled the encounter in the tunnel. The witch's absolute desperation and cries of fear echoing in her mind. She didn’t care what Sucy said. To her, it really was quite fascinating.


	2. Man Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Everyone! Sorry this took so long for me to update, but College has really taken its toll on me, in both terms of free time and motivation. It's hard to find the time to want to write when I'm writing a bunch of papers for my classes. That being said, this chapter is significantly longer then the last and is actually the longest thing I have written yet. There is a lot of world building in this chapter, so it might seem a little slow compared to last one, but I hope you enjoy it all the same. One final note to mention, thanks to a kind and helpful review from Tigermoji on the last chapter, I've decided to forego in depth descriptions of characters that aren't my own/that fans of the show would already be familiar with. The only time you'll see these descriptions is for original characters, or if something is drastically different about a character's design.

“No joke! She actually, 100% tried to surrender! And it wasn’t even an attempt to trick me, or turn me into anything! Isn’t that weird? Wouldn’t YOU be intrigued Lotte?” Akko asked loudly. She was turned in her seat to look at her friend, eagerly awaiting a response. The orange hair girl simply nodded her head.

“That is quite unusual. I can see why you’d want to ask at least some questions.” 

Akko smiled triumphantly at this, turning to Sucy with a smug look on her face. The pale girl only rolled her eyes in response. Akko huffed at this, and turned back to Lotte to continue their conversation. The whole trip back to base had been nothing but Akko telling Lotte of her “super interesting” take down of the stray witch. Sucy was sure of two things. One, the encounter had been nowhere near as exciting or dramatic as Akko made it out to be, and two, she was absolutely fed up with hearing about it. Sucy sighed as she leaned back into her seat, trying to tune out Akko’s senseless chatter, wishing that the transport would move faster. It had already been driving for several hours, and Sucy wasn’t quite sure she could take much longer. Thankfully for her, as the transport crested the next hill, the Nova base had finally come into view.

As far as Nova force operations went, the base the three young hunters were stationed at was relatively small. Meant primarily as a storage outpost, it comprised mainly of three large hangars, each spaced equidistant apart over a large expanse of asphalt. Near the westernmost hangar sat a tiny air strip and control tower, meant for cargo freighters, although it was occasionally used by smaller private craft. Situated in front of the storage hangars was the the control center. Inside it housed a wide array of communication and track equipment, as well as being home to the base’s medical center. Despite being the largest building on base, it still paled in comparison to the size of the storage units. Long and rectangular, its brick walls and brightly flying flags looked almost out of place sitting in front of the dull steel storage behemoths looming behind it. Finally, tucked behind the center hangar were the barracks, training hall, and mess hall. The three smaller buildings sat around a dirt field, the barracks on the left, the mess on the right, and the training hall taking center stage. The entire base was surrounded by high, steel walls. The top of the walls were lined with special wires, glowing a faint green, as they hummed with the plasma surging through them, ready to vaporize a potential trespasser. As the three hunter’s transport pulled to a stop at the wall, Akko clapped her hands excitedly.

“I can’t wait to tell Ursula Taichou all about the mission! Our first deployment by ourselves months and we rocked it!” Turning back to face forward in her seat, Akko leaned back with a satisfied sigh. Looking up at the transport ceiling, she hummed contently to herself.

_“Yeah? you gonna tell her about how you almost left behind a slain witch’s wand?”_ Sucy thought to herself with a mischievous smirk. She decided that she would wait to share that particular bit of info when Akko was at her cockiest. It seemed like a fair revenge for making her listen to her nonsense for the past few hours. Suddenly, Lotte gave a small groan of frustration as she was typing away on a panel next to her seat. Sucy quirked an eyebrow in a silent question as the Finnish girl became more and more exasperated.

“Something wrong Lotte?” Sucy finally asked. Lotte gave a small start at Sucy’s question, sheepishly looking up at her before nodding.

“The clearance code for the gate isn’t working. It keeps telling me its invalid.”

“Eh? Here let me see.” Sucy said, turning to the panel next to her. While she was remaining relatively calm on the outside, the pale girl felt like screaming. Of course the code starts to act up when all she wants to do is relax in her lab. Letting out a sigh, Sucy checked the number listed as the day’s clearance code on her communicator and punched it into the panel. As it had with Lotte, the panel immediately flashed red with a message reading “INVALID CODE” Grumbling to herself Sucy carefully began to put in the code again. As if she had just realized that they were still stopped, Akko began to look around the transport confused.

“Why haven’t we gone through yet?” the brunette questioned. Unable to contain her ire any longer Sucy scowled at the obvious question.

“Weren't you listening? The clearance code isn’t working!” Sucy all be shouted. “The damn thing keeps saying its invalid!”

“That’s not possible. That’s the only code I had on my communicator.” Akko stated matter-of-factly. “It can’t be another code only one gets sent out each day.” Sucy grit her teeth at this.

“I know that Akko,” she ground out. “But the damn code isn’t. Working.”

“It has too.”  
“Do you want to tell it that then!?” Sucy shouted!

Lotte wrung her hands nervously as tensions started rising in the vehicle. Despite their closeness, Akko and Sucy quarreled often. That was no secret. Akko’s stubborn personality just seemed to clash with Sucy’s reserved one, and they would get into spats over small grievances like this. While Lotte cared for her two friends deeply, and wouldn’t trade their company for anything in the world, she really wished they wouldn’t fight as much. She hated how awkward things felt when she got caught in the middle of their disputes. As she tried to find a way to maybe dispel some of the tension between her friends, something about the clearance code caught her eye.

“Don’t get mad at me if the thing isn’t working! I’m only telling you that it should!” Akko said angrily.

“I know that it should! How does reiterating it even remotely help fix the problem!?” Sucy retorted.

“Um guys?” Lotte interjected weakly.

“Maybe you're just putting it in wrong!”

“I tried 5 times Akko! There’s no way I’m getting it wrong!”

“Guys?” Lotte tried again, a little louder

“Ehhhh!? 5 times!? What did you do that for!? We probably have like one try left before we get locked out! Or obliterated!”

“Then do you wanna try!? Be my guest oh mighty wise code breaker Akko!”

“Guys!” Lotte suddenly yelled, breaking up her friends’ fight. The two hunters turned to their friend in surprise, their fight momentarily forgotten. Seizing the opportunity of their silence, Lotte continued.

“I know why the code isn’t working. It’s yesterday’s.”

At this information the other two were somewhat stunned.

“Seriously?” Sucy asked in disbelief that the answer had been that simple. “You can tell that? Your memory is amazing Lotte.” At the compliment Lotte allowed herself a small confident smile. One that didn’t stick around when Sucy asked her next question. “So where’s today’s?”

“That, I do not know.” Lotte clasped her hands in thought. “The code should be refreshed each day, and then taken of note on the communicator.”  
“Well then why don’t we have it?” The question had just barely left Sucy’s lips when Akko let out a knowing gasp. A knowing, guilty gasp. Slowly, ever so slowly Sucy turned towards her air headed teammate. Akko shrank back a bit under Sucy’s glare. Barely contained rage boiled in her friend’s red eyes. “Something you wanted to add, Akko?” Sucy spoke softly, letting her friend know just how truly mad she was.

“Ehehehehe weeellll funny story about writing down the clearance code.” Akko swallowed nervously before she said her next words, already seeing in her mind how Sucy was going to kill her. “I might have, um...forgotten to do that?”

“You are so fucking dead.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was about four hours of sitting in front of the wall uselessly before Akko and her teammates finally got their salvation in the form of the Green team. Comprised of Amanda O’neil, Jasminka Antonenko, and Constanze Amalie von Braunschbank-Albrechtsberger, the green team was the other team of hunters in training under Ursula. While Akko and her friends usually got along quite well with the other three girls, Akko often took issue with Amanda’s tendency to tease her. Something she was in the middle of right now. 

 

“Wow, just wow! Of all the stupid things you could do, forgetting the clearance code has to be at least number two or three!” Amanda said, a fiendish grin on her face as she elbowed the shorter Japanese girl. “What’d you do huh? Run out in a hurry because you were gonna miss deployment?” smacking the American’s arm away Akko scowled.

“No! I was just focused on making sure my suit was ready.” Akko groaned as this did little to persuade the other girl. She had already been getting most of this ear full from Sucy earlier. It certainly didn’t help that Amanda felt the need for a repeat course. As the two team leaders squabbled, the group made their way to armory in the back corner of the hangar, ready to hang up their gear. While it was called the armory, it was little more than a glorified locker room, which it might have been originally as the base had only recently made some conversions to accommodate the presence of hunters. Each Hunter on base was provided their own stall in which their armor and weapons were stored. Much like the armor’s held within, the stalls were color coordinated, helping to designate which stalls belonged to which teams. Akko personally thought these distinctions were largely pointless, as only two hunter teams were currently present at the base. She was sure she could figure out which one was hers, regardless if it was color coded or not. Although Amanda had momentarily paused her torment of Akko to change out of her armor, Akko was still fuming, thinking of a comeback to shut the snarky American up.

_“I know!”_ She thought to herself triumphantly. _“I’ll tell her all about the witch I killed in the tunnel! There’s no way she can keep calling me a dunce when her team didn’t even see any action today!”_ Akko chuckled to herself, thinking her plan to be foolproof. Amanda must of have thought that she wasn’t paying attention when she had been complaining about how dull their mission was earlier. Akko smiled to herself as she pictured the moment in her head; Amanda standing dumbstruck at how cool she was getting a witch to beg for her life. Akko deactivated her suit, and began to remove it piece by piece as she let out a wistful sigh. While showing up Amanda is great and all, there was really only one person Akko wanted to relay her victory too. Turning to look at her teacher’s stall, Akko frowned as she still saw it was empty. Unlike the stalls of the two teams which were lumped together on the left wall, the stalls of the instructors and the veteran hunters stood proudly, spaced evenly throughout the locker room. Each stall was also larger than that of the students and were colored a deep blue. Akko stared at Ursula’s empty stall, wondering where on earth her teacher could be. Hadn’t she been deployed with them? She should be back by now. Akko stood there, lost in thought, half out of her armor as she had only just removed the torso. She probably would have stood their a good while longer if Amanda hadn’t reached over and pulled back on the strap of her undershirt. She chuckled to herself as the outstretched material snapped back against Akko’s skin startling her out of her stupor.

“Now you're spacing out too? Come on Akko. Hurry up and change so we can grab something to eat. Were all starving!” At this Conze hummed in agreement mimicking pointing at watch on her wrist. Akko rubbed her shoulder in annoyance as she turned to look at them.

“Geez just go on without me. I’ll catch up.” Akko resumed removing her armor as she said this. With a nod, Amanda turned to leave, but stopped suddenly to give a small smile to her friend. 

“Alright, but don’t take too long okay? After a good mission we could all use some R&R, starting with food.” With a friendly pat on the back, Amanda made her exit, following the other girls out. Akko sighed in frustration as they left. One of the things that made Amanda so infuriating was how hard it was to stay mad at her. The girl always seemed to know when a string of teasing needed to be broken up by a heartfelt gesture.

_“Stupid Amanda, being a good friend. Now I can’t show her up!”_ Akko thought to herself as she removed her leggings. _“Oh well, I can still share the story anyway, just without an edge of revenge. I’m sure the others will think it’s awesome!”_ With that happy thought in mind, and her armor properly stored and removed, Akko made her way to the mess hall,

Sometimes Akko forgot just how big the storage hangars were, or more importantly, how eerie it felt to walk through them alone. Every step she took echoed off the high domed steel around her. Usually the hangars had quite a few crewmen bustling about, but at this late in the night, they were most likely off duty. It clicked with her just then that it was indeed quite late at night, leading her to check the time. She stopped and looked at the large clock on the hangar wall. The clock faintly glowed back that it was 0200 hours. Akko sighed as she continued on her walk. So it wasn’t really late at night, just super early in the morning. She knew that once the excitement from her mission wore off, she was going to be tired as hell. She was already cringing at the thought of having to wake up in time for morning training tomorrow. Maybe Ursula would make an exception and let them sleep in. As she pondered the possibility Akko’s stomach growled, causing her to up her pace to mess hall. She could worry about a lack of sleep later, a lack of food needed to be solved now.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As she entered the mess, Akko noticed something immediately. She could actually smell something that had been cooking. At this time of the day, the mess hall had been long since shut down, yet the unmistakable smell of a fresh cooked meal wafted through the area.

“There you are Akko!” Amanda said sitting with the others at a nearby table. She sat on one side, Jasminka to her right and Constanze to her left, gesturing across the table to an empty seat between the two red team girls “Come on and sit down! Jas made us all stew!” As if to punctuate her point, the girl turned back to her bowl, stuffing a large spoonful into her mouth.

Taking the seat between Sucy and Lotte, Akko’s mouth all but watered as she deeply breathed in the scent of the stew. 

“Wow Jasminka! This smells great!” She said excitedly, grabbing a spoon eagerly. The Russian girl giggled slightly handing an already served bowl to Akko.

“Thank you Akko. I can assure that it will taste even better. I figured that after such a long day, we could all use something fresh rather than the usual fare.” Taking the bowl from her friend, Akko nodded in agreement. There wasn’t anything particularly wrong with the cold sandwiches set aside for those returning from a late night mission. It’s just that they could be a little depressing to eat when one was so tired. Hot stew was definitely a better alternative. For the most part, the six friends ate in relative silence focused more on stuffing their faces then making conversation. Some light questions were asked about each other's day’s leading the topic of their mission to come up. Amanda let out a drawn out groan, leaning back as far as she could on the bench without toppling over.

“I can’t believe it was soooooo boring! I mean I know we were essentially just waiting for potential stragglers, but I expected to at least see SOME action..”

The mission had been one that the Nova higher ups had deemed relatively simple. Following the successful liberation of the town of Appleton some months prior, several key witches that were apart of the ruling covenant had managed to escape the Nova Force’s grasp, fleeing into the British countryside. Ever since then, Nova intel had been on a close lookout for information, hoping to track down and eliminate the escaped witches. Whenever they thought they found a hit, they would deploy any nearby hunters to investigate. Apparently, drone footage had captured signs of life coming from the ruins of an old village. Believe it to be the final hold out of the runaway witches, hunters were called to deployment. It just happened to be that the only hunters close enough to respond were the ones stationed at the trainee base. With only 4 veteran hunters stationed at the base, it was decided that the recruits would join the mission...technically. Ursula had been absolutely adamant that they take part in no major active combat without supervision, as they had yet to go on a hunt solo. So while she and the other veterans stormed the village ruins, the two trainee teams were situated a ways away. The Green team to the North, The Red team to the South. Their job: watch for any witches that escaped the central ruins, and only give chase in a case of near certain victory. This left Amanda, Constanze, and Jasminka to basically stand around in a large field for several hours, occasionally checking comm lines in the transport for potentially new instruction. Akko and company would have been resigned to the same fate, if a lone scrawny witch hadn’t sneaked her way out of the ruins right before the hunters arrived. The all clear signal had just been given by the veterans when Lotte spotted the lone figure making a mad dash for the abandoned tunnel, pointing her out in a panic. This of course lead to Akko excitedly exclaiming that she was going to give chase and for Sucy to back her up. Remembering that she had yet to relay this detail to the Green team, Akko swallowed her mouthful of stew before excitedly looking at her friends.

“Well guess what? We actually got to fight a witch!” She exclaimed proudly, crossing her arms and closing her eyes with a smug grin toying at the corners of her face. Constanze look at her wide eyed, Jasminka let out a small gasp, and Amanda went briefly slack jawed.

“What!?” Amanda exclaimed irritably, whipping back forwardly in an almost comic fashion. “No way!! How come you guys got to do some actual fighting?”

Akko chuckled her grin growing wider.

“Well, actually only Akko and Sucy did any actual fighting. I just waited by the transport.” Lotte said somewhat quietly. Jasminka smiled at the, putting her hand over hers. Sucy shrugged at this. 

“All I really did was follow our resident dork here. She did all the killing.”

“Still! That’s more excitement then we saw!” Now fired up with an excited glint in her eye, Amanda turned to the brunette. “Well don’t leave us hanging! What was it like?”

Akko opened her eyes, uncrossed her arms and leaned forward with what she thought was a cool air. 

“So there I was, surrounded in the darkness of a run down old tunnel, tracking the witch. She must have been a total ammatuer, becaus she was really making it easy for me. Not only was she breathing heavily enough for me to hear it, but she wasn’t even covering her tracks with magic!” Akko paused for a bit, gauging her friend’s reaction. Amanda was clearly hooked, hanging onto the edge of her seat waiting to hear more. Jasminka appeared to be equally excited as she munched on a bag of popcorn she seemingly pulled from out of nowhere. Constanze looked...well like Constanze. It could be hard for Akko to get a read on the short girl sometimes, but from the way she was leaning forward in her seat, Akko guessed that she was excited too. Taking this as a good sign, she continued. 

“Eventually she stopped running, and started to look around the tunnel. That’s when I blasted her!” Akko mimed firing a rifle with her hands. “The blast really caught her off guard and she went sailing! After she crashed into the wall, I stepped forward, ready to end it.” If the Green team hadn’t been fully engrossed in Akko’s theatrical retelling before, they certainly were now. 

“Then what? Did she try and cast a spell at you?” Amanda asked. 

“No, she didn’t try any spells, but that’s because she dropped her wand when I hit her.” Akko smirked as she thought of what happened next, knowing it was gonna stun her friends. “No she didn’t try any magic. She tried a very different tactic.” Here Akko paused for emphasis, hoping to build some suspense. “She tried begging for her life instead! I must have really scared the pants off her!” She put her hands on her hips proudly. “It didn’t work of course. After I asked her some questions, I blew her head off and that was that.”

Akko had expected some gasps of shock, maybe a question or two, maybe even a vote of praise even. What she got instead was the members of the Green team staring back at her blankly. Squirming a little in the silence that followed her story, Akko tried to provoke a response. 

“Well? Pretty cool right?” 

Amanda only scoffed, he excited air being replaced by her more familiar cool one. “ A witch? Begging? As in she surrendered?” Akko didn’t like the tone of the question. Something was off. Amanda should be telling her how super cool she was right now.

“Yes...:” Akko began cautiously. “She did surrender, then she begged, then I made her face go splat.” Akko was caught off guard as Amanda started to laugh. “Hey! What’s so funny!?” the Japanese girl asked angrily.

“Witches don’t surrender Akko. They see humans as lesser beings. They would never admit they were weaker! Besides they don’t have emotions like us! They can’t feel the regret needed to beg.” Amanda stated. Constanze nodded in agreement and Jasminka added a quiet ‘It’s true.’

Akko huffed in annoyance and tried to explain. “I know they don’t! That’s why it was so weird and kinda cool that this one did! How aren’t you finding this fascinating?” Amanda had seemingly stopped listening, as she now turned to Sucy.

“Did you guys even actually encounter a witch, or is this just more of Akko’s tall tales?”  
“I don’t tell tall tales! I’m telling the truth!” Again Amanda, and Constanze and Jasminka as well looked to Sucy for confirmation.

Swallowing the food she had in her mouth, Sucy nodded in the affirmative. “Yeah, she’s mostly telling the truth. She’s making it sound cooler than it was, but the witch definitely started to beg for her life.”

Akko laughed in triumph, pumping her fist in the air. “See! I told you it’s true!”

“Yeah, you just left out the part where you were gonna leave her wand behind.”

Akko all but deflated at this statement. In the silence that followed, she swore she could hear her own heart beat. Sucy quietly giggled to herself as her friend froze mid bravado. So she hadn’t hung on to that bit of information as long as she would have liked, but she had to admit this still made for some sweet revenge. The silence was suddenly broken as Amanda broke into a fit of obnoxious laughter. Akko could feel her ears burn with embarrassment as the Green team leader clutched at her stomach, tears in her eyes. 

“You left the wand? Are you still in day one training?” Amanda managed to ask through her laughing fit. 

“NO! I just got caught up in the moment is all!” Akko crossed her arms with a pout, her good mood all but soured by Sucy’s outburst. 

_“I didn’t mean to leave the wand. I wouldn’t have either if the witch wasn’t such a strange one.”_ Akko thought to herself. Still, she felt herself sigh, as this was hardly a good excuse.

A witch’s wand could tell one many things about it’s wielder, from what type of person they were to what was the last spell they casted. More importantly, it could even show the final memories of the one who owned it. While Nova scientist weren’t entirely sure how it worked, somehow, if another witch were to happen upon the wand of a fallen comrade, they could project not only what the witch who had died last seen, but what they had last felt, what they had last thought, even what they had last said. Needless to say, this was an alarming amount of information for an enemy to have, should they ever decide to counter attack. In fact, during the early years of the rebellion, it was most likely left behind wands that lead to so many damaging witch sneak attacks on Nova bases. It was for this reason that not only every hunter, but every soldier in the rebellion period had one above all else key principal drilled into their heads: Never leave behind a wand. It was something Akko and the other had all heard since day one of their training. Something that was repeated so many times to her, she really had no excuse for forgetting, unique situation or not. 

As Amanda’s laughter died down, the six friends returned to idle chatter, when Akko remembered an earlier question she had.  
“Hey, where do you guys think Ursula Taichou is? Shouldn’t she and the others be back by now?” At Akko’s question, Lotte turned to her friend.

“Akko, Captain Ursula and the others most likely won’t be back for a few days. They might have slain all the witches, but they would still need to report to the main HQ.” Lotte stated. “They might even be sent to Appleton for a bit to help reinstall a human governing system.” 

Akko frowned deeply at this. She had really been looking forward to telling Ursula about the encounter she had, maybe even asking her if the veteran hunter had ever encountered something similar. It seemed like fate had other ideas however, as now it looked like she would have to wait.

“Awww man! That sucks!” The brunette complained. Gathering her bowl and utensils to put in wash bin, Akko stood up from the table. “Oh well. Guess there’s not much I can do about it. I think I’m gonna go take a shower and hit the hay. I’m beat.” Her friends all murmured in agreement as they too gathered their things, and made their way out of the mess hall.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Akko sighed as she stood under the warm water spewing from the shower head. There was nothing quite like some good hot water to soothe her after a stressful day. Briefly, her mind flashed back to the hot springs she and her parents had visited back home. It had been only a few years after North Japan’s liberation, and her parents had taken her to festival being held near their hometown to celebrate. After a long day of walking down the streets and dashing excitedly from stall to stall, the Kagari family had visited the hot spring to relax. While she had still been little at the time, Akko remembered how calming the hot water really was, and how it seemed to melt all her troubles away. Of course while a hot shower was hardly a worthy replacement for a hot spring, Akko still appreciated it. Having scrubbed herself clean, Akko reached over and turned off the shower, stepping out of the stall and grabbing her nearby towel. 

She shivered a bit, as her bare foot hit the cold bathroom tile. Akko muttered under breath for what was probably the 100th time that they could really use a bath mat. She dried off quickly, not wanting to stand around on the cold tile any longer then she had to. Grabbing her night clothes from where she had left them hanging, Akko got dressed. Slipping on her white tank top, and pulling up her underwear followed by her long sweat pants, Akko stood to examine herself in the mirror. She frowned, and the wet haired brunette in her reflection frowned back at her. Akko hadn’t really noticed it till now, but their night outfits looked quite similar to outfits hunters wore under their suits. She sighed as she set about brushing her hair. While she had brushed it off before, Akko was still really bummed that she wouldn’t get the chance to brag to her teacher tonight.

_“Morning.” she mentally corrected herself, “this morning.”_

It’s not like Akko desired to tell Ursula of her and her team’s success to feed her own ego or anything, it was just that Akko wanted Ursula to be able to be proud of her teaching. Akko was a notorious screw up during boot camp and base training, so much so that she was nearly kicked out despite her letter of recommendation. It had been during initial suit testing. The trainees had been told beforehand by the instructors that when the suits connected to their nerve points, it was going to be initially painful. It was normal, and the cadets should remain calm and grit their way through it. Akko had done the opposite. Despite steeling herself beforehand, the pain she felt was unbearable, and she ended up screaming out flailing her limbs as she tried to make it stop. This lead to her smacking into the trainee next to her, causing them to lose control and bump into the one next to them. This went on through the entire line, until the instructor himself was crushed under the mass of flailing cadets. The Nova Strike Force, the strongest asset of the human rebellion, and all its incoming hopefuls were sprawled humiliatingly across the dirt. While almost every instructor had considered this the last straw, Ursula Callistis had stood up for Akko, claiming that she had the makings of fine hunter yet, and all she needed was time and patience. The Ursula Callistis, legendary Nova Force hunter, the youngest to ever make Captain, was standing up for her. The Captain’s influence was strong, and her track record preceded her. If she believed that Akko could be taught, she could be taught. It was because of this act of defense that Akko figured it was no accident that she ended up apprenticed to Ursula after graduating boot camp. The other instructors and higher ups probably figured that if she was willing to stand up for the troubling girl, then she was willing to mentor her too.

Ever since arriving at this newly appointed training base, Akko tried her absolute best to do Ursula proud. She went over maneuvers and protocols through her head day and night, and studied just about everything there was to know about witches (Although that last part might have been due more to her personal obsession). It was thanks to all this hard work, and private lessons from Ursula on the side, that Akko started to show dramatic improvement in both her combat skills, and her tracking skills; two things she hadn’t been able to put into action until today. And it went great! Akko didn’t just want to tell Ursula of the job she had done so she could feel proud of herself, but so that Ursula could feel pride in all the hours she had put into teaching the younger girl.

With her hair brushed and her shower done. Akko slipped on her sandals, and began to walk back to her room. The barracks the trainee’s slept in, like most other of their commodities, were small, and cramped. Most of the base’s crew personnel slept in expansive living quarters built under the hangars they worked in, but the as the hunter’s were a last addition to the base, their quarters had been built in a hurry, covering the bare minimum needed to comfortably house the group of six and their four superiors. The hallways were relatively narrow and connected the Red team’s three person room to the Green team’s three person room. Down past both rooms were the showers and past that were the relatively larger rooms of the veteran hunters. Each vet got their own room and their own shower, not to mention more room to themselves then the cadets did. In between the Red room and the Green room, the hallway opened up to a sort of common area, where three old couches and some worn arm chairs sat in front of small wall mounted TV.

As she walked past the Common area, Akko noticed that all her friends were in it, rather than in bed, all crowded around the TV. Confused, Akko walked into the room.

“Hey guys, uh whatcha’ watching?” She asked.

“SHHHHHHH!!!” The other girls all responded in near unison. Taken aback by the aggressive shushing, Akko recoiled a bit, before repeating her question in a much lower voice.

“Whatcha’ watching?” 

Constanze only pointed harshly at the TV screen. Akko looked at the screen, and the somewhat grainy footage that was displayed on it. She mentally laughed to herself.

_“Looks like Constanze has been hacking into security camera footage again.”_  
As Akko watched the screen she could see several crewmen in the main hall running back and forth seemingly in a panic about something. 

“That’s odd…” Jasminka said in a low voice. “I didn’t think there were that many crew members stationed in the hall at this hour. 

“That’s because there shouldn’t be…” Amanda replied, equally as quiet. 

Any earlier mirth Akko had been feeling evaporated as it became clear to her and the others watching that something was wrong. Something was very wrong. The trainees got their answer as to what when the doors to the hall all but burst open, and an armored figure walked in. Akko could recognized the black suit and deep crimson accents anywhere.

“Ursula Taichou is back!” Akko couldn’t help herself from blurting out. It seemed her friends were past caring.

“But she and the other’s shouldn’t be back for at least a few days,” Lotte repeated from earlier. “What could they possibly be back f-”

“HELP!” they heard Ursula scream through the cam footage, cutting Lotte off mid sentence. “Help! Somebody get the medical staff!”

While it had been hard to make out before, the group slowly realized that Ursula’s suit was quite the worse for wear. It was heavily dented all over, and the left shoulder pad seemingly had been blown clean off, along with a chunk of armor underneath it, exposing a bloody patch of skin. As Ursula removed her helmet, it was quite clear that the vizor had been severely cracked as well. Blood trickled down from the blue haired woman’s forehead, leaving a streak across her face. Akko paled as she took in her teacher’s injuries. What had happened to her? And if this is what she looked like, how bad was the rest of the squa-

Akko’s train of thought was cut off as she got her answer. She could hear Lotte choke back a sob, Amanda curse under her breath, and Constanze let out a gasp as Croix Meridies and Lewis Blackwell came into view. While these two members of the group didn’t look particularly worse for wear, aside from a few scratches and nasty cuts, it was the third member they were straining to support that drew the shocked reactions. Chuck Leeson hung limply between his teammates, his arms draped over their shoulders as they attempted to support him. If it hadn’t been for the signature purple marking on his armor, Akko wasn’t sure she would be able to recognize the man, as his normally cheerful face was now horribly disfigured, half of it severely burned. The six girls sat in shocked silence, each unable to form any kind of sentence. Through the TV they could hear Lewis, shakingly try to explain what had happened to the head doctor, who had just arrived on scene.

“H-he protected me. I was going to...I’ve could have...he took the hit.” The blonde boy stuttered uselessly.

“Calm down son,” The doctor said placing a hand on Lewis shoulder as the medical crew took Chuck away. “Remember your training, and just explain to me what happened.” Taking a deep breath, Lewis nodded slowly before responding.

“Poison. He was hit by a magical corrosive poison.” 

If the doctor had a response to this, the young hunters didn’t get a chance to hear it, as the door to the common area was slammed open. All six of them jumped, five turning to face the source of the noise while Constanze fummbled with the remote, quickly turning the TV off. The source of the slamming was a large and stern man, known to the girls as Commander Carmine. He was the technical head of the base, in terms of continuing it’s storage operations, but almost everyone on base held Ursula in a higher respect, something that usually irked him to no end. He stood in the door, a grim expression on his face as he scanned the room.

“You’re all here?” He questioned in his gravelly voice. At the silent nods of confirmation he continued, “Good. Captain Ursula has requested to see you all in the training hall, ASAP.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought in the comments! Hopefully the next chapter will be out sooner then this one was.


End file.
